Once again with the epic descriptions! I still think that you're a writing God! You must do a class on your Godly wisdom so that I may learn how to be as fantastic a writer as you!

I can't help but get lost in your writing so easily, the words are so fluid and work so well together, and everything that you write is just like this great masterpiece and I need to read everything that you've ever written because I am getting obsessed and I can never let go of your writing! You captured Myrtles emotions with brilliance and you're just so amazing and I wish I had more to say but I'm just going to stop before my gushing gets out of hand and you need to get a restraining order out on me for stalking you!

Geesh... You leave me hoping for a sequel. Something about a student that will try to help her finally leave Hogwarts bathroom and rest in peace might be nice.

Poor, poor ghost. I wish to lend her some inner strength.

At any rate, your concept of "forever young" reminds me a tad of "Interview with a Vampire" where Claudia didn't want to be a girl anymore. She wanted to grow up but felt cursed because she could never be a woman.

Bullying really cuts to the soul. And I think you have captured those feelings... timeless, crossing eras, it is the same through the ages.

Good job,
Your Slytherin Secret Snowflake

Author's Response: thank you! this is another one of those old stories that i'm not 100% on people still reading, but i'm still quite proud of the concept of this story if not the execution so much. i did think of a novel-length story about a Hogwarts student who would help her move on, but that was back in 2012, the same time i wrote this story, and i don't think i could still write something along the same lines.

I'm guessing that this was myrtle? I really loved how you didn't reveal the name though as it seemed to give the story a much more mysterious in a way and how it could be true for all ghosts. I really liked how you mentioned the negative aspects of being one though because like most people I'm all whoo ghosts and want to be one when so this aspect was really cool especially the emphasis on never having a tomorrow as it was actually really hard hitting and sort I made me appreciate all of my tomorrows and was a really poignant story, Lisa!

Author's Response: yes it was Myrtle! i didn't realise most people are all whoo ghosts i want to be one, but you learn something new every day? i hope your ghostly aspirations come true one day, kiana

What you've done here with Myrtle's character is amazing! I've never seen someone give her so much depth and make her this sympathetic - instead of a pathetic whining girl, she's more of a victim, not only because of the way that she died and the bullying, but a victim of time. She can't mature because she's dead - all the years she experiences while dead have no effect on her appearance or, it seems, her personality. The chance to grow up and live were taken from her, and she can never get them back. And that last line, oh my god! She blames herself for existing, rather than blaming her persecutors - that's truly sad, even tragic.

You take Myrtle seriously as a person, and that's what's fantastic to see, making for an original and exciting story (exciting in its new way of looking at a character). It's interesting how many stories of serious bullying JRK includes in the Harry Potter series, from Myrtle as the one who can't escape it to Harry who does, and prevails. sorry, I'm rambling!

The language and style of this story add to the feeling of time passing slowly by, the long sentences reflecting Myrtle's eternal curse. There were a couple of places where I thought the flow could be improved or when the grammatical structure wasn't balanced. So for instance, in the line "The memory of her fourteen years alive eclipsed by nearly seventy years of miserable death", the first part and the second part don't match - instead consider "the memory of fourteen years of life eclipsed by nearly seventy years of miserable death" to balance the sentence structure. Also, that paragraph after the first line contained "her" so many times that it was actually getting in the way - it may be a personal taste thing, though, so ignore me if I'm being annoying. ;)

Great work with this one-shot! I'm very glad to have come across it in the review tag. ^_^

Author's Response: Thank you! I really did want to bring some depth to her character and make her much more sympathetic - she's comic relief in the books and I felt her entire story is far too tragic for that. When we meet her in the books, she really is fourteen years old, despite how long it's been since she died, she hasn't learned or matured in that time. That's the worst part of her story - she'll never grow up enough to put her bullying into perspective. It was her whole world when she was alive and it will continue to be.

Thank you for the points on wording - what you suggested with "of life" rather than 'life' really does make sense, and I do think I'll go back and change it. And I didn't notice how often I used 'her' in that first paragraph - you're right, it is a bit excessive, looking back. Thanks for the pointers, and for the lovely review!

Wow. Such a different take on Myrtle. This was really really good. She doesn't change because she can't change, not because she doesn't want to. I don't think I could ever see her in the same light again. As usual, this is really really well done. The short piece gave me chills up my spine. Wow. Good job :)

Author's Response: Thank you! I'm glad it's had some impact and makes people think twice about Myrtle and the reality of her situation. Thanks for reading and the review :)

I've always felt really horrible for Myrtle for all of the reasons mentioned in this one-shot. That's one of my few complaints about JKR - I love the woman and think she's brilliant, but I think that by making Myrtle a comic relief rather than an instrument to show just how deeply bullying someone could affect them was more than a little disappointing. You, however, hit the nail on the head with this one.

This was poetic without being it weighted down by purple prose. At first, I thought you were talking about Alice Longbottom, mostly because of the line about insanity, but then it all clicked once you mentioned all of the things we can identify with Myrtle. So yeah, there were no issues with clarity as far as I'm concerned.

The flow was excellent, the language was beautiful and put to good use, and I got a strong sense of Myrtle's character. I thought your portrayal of her emotions was not only executed extraordinarily well, but poignant as well. It was very sad, reading this, but also very enlightening about her character.

You did a fantastic job with this. Just - wow. This packed a heavy punch, I'll tell you that much.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful - you should write more experimental one-shots, especially if this is how they'll turn out.

Marvelous!

- Molly

Author's Response: Thank you so much! I love your reviews, they honestly make me so happy. Anyway, on to the actual response.

I didn't really click on to how wrong the treatment of Myrtle was in the canon until very recently, but when I did I felt compelled to write about her. So, here's the result. It's one of those ideas that once I thought about it and wrote it, it's just stayed with me. Bullying is such a massive issue and I hate the fact that it was so casually and even mockingly treated in the canon.

I have a lot of feels about this, so I'm glad (even though this sounds weird) that it was unsettling to read. A big part of the purpose of this story is to make people think twice about how Myrtle's treated, and if I've achieved that then I've achieved the purpose of this one shot.

Once again, thank you so much for the lovely review, you've completely made my day and I always come back to reread the other review you left me :)

This was truly lovely!
In a depressing, angsty way, that is. Which is good.

First of all, congrats on writing a minor character - I don't understand why they get so overlooked when there are so many potential in them. And you didn't just write any character, but Myrtle, who is so intriguingly complex!

I really liked the mood of the story, how claustrophobic and pessimistic it feels to see Myrtle trapped in her perpetual youth, trapped inside her own mind, too.
People always think of youth as something good, something to hold on to for as long as possible, and I quite like it that this isn't the case here. For Myrtle it is a curse, because she will never grow up to have a normal life or develop as a personality.
Your style serves the purpose of the story masterfully and I just have to say how much I loved the idea of her years of life being "eclipsed" by her years of death. /Eclipsed/. It simply takes the whole sentence to another level!

Um. Sorry if this review was somewhat incoherent (mine usually are), but it was written at 2:50 am, so... :3

Great story, keep it up!

Author's Response: Thanks so much! I don't think many people have written about Myrtle at all, and the reality of her situation just hit me and I had to write about it. I'm still experimenting with this sort of style - the introspective, descriptive one-shot thing, so I'm glad I'm pulling it off and doing justice to the idea. Eternal youth really is a curse, especially at Myrtle's age when she's just too young to look beyond the bullying and what her peers think of her. People tend to look at teenage years with rose-tinted glasses, overlooking how difficult they are, and in Myrtle's case they were much harder than most.

I have a lot of feels about Myrtle at the moment. May need to write more :P Thanks so much for the lovely (and coherent, so don't worry!) review :)